These house rules have been established in order to keep the Andalucia.com forum a healthy environment for discussion. All contributions are subject to the Forum Terms and Conditions in addition to the main website legal advice and privacy policy.

The objective of this forum is to offer information, help and advice to people visiting, living in (permanently or otherwise), moving to, owning property in or just interested in Andalucia.

1-1 General You agree not to post any libellous, abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, vile, disgusting, sexually-oriented or racist material or “hate speech” or any post suggesting any illegal activity. Similarly, do not post links to this type of material. This rule also applies to messages between members using the Personal Message facility.

1-2 You cannot legally post entire articles or news, or other copyrighted material on the forum without permission from the copyright holder. Even if you attribute the article/material correctly, it is still copyright infringement. Minor fair use excerpts of less than one paragraph or 4 sentences may be used if the content is publicly available on the Internet. All other forms of inserted content from press releases, newsletters, web pages, or any other copyrighted content placed into messages will be removed without exception. A link to the content is acceptable and appropriate.

1-3 Trolling Trolling on this site is not allowed. We define trolling as any inflammatory threads or posts that are started with the sole intent of upsetting or antagonising other members

1-4 Before starting a new topic use the search facility to see if it has already been covered.

2-1 AdvertisingYou agree not to post messages that advertise commercial products or services or Internet Web sites. Specific personal recommendations in response to requests are acceptable if we consider them to be genuine, but only from well-established members. Recommendations or links from first-time posters will not be permitted.

Businesses should PM "Private Mail" the poster directly if they want to help without advertising. Those wishing to advertise on the Andalucia.com website should complete an enquiry form This policy is designed to protect our advertisers who fund this notice board. It also applies to commercial usernames and tag lines.

One exception to this rule applies to the “Events” topic. Notices about upcoming events, posted by commercial organisers may be allowed, but only with the express permission of Andalucia.com management.

3-1 Private Mail facility The PM facility may only be used for individual messages to a specific recipient and not as a broadcast or ‘spam’ facility. Repeated posting of similar material is not permitted. This practice is often called spamming. Private Messages are private. Reposting of a Private Message in the open forum is strictly prohibited. If you wish someone to reply privately to your post, please do so by asking them to PM you. Do NOT post your email address on the forum.

4-4 Relevance to AndaluciaKeeping to the forum's purpose we generally require posts to be relevant to Andalucía. We accept posts that also relate to other parts of Spain, particularly in the Travel and Tourism section, and accept posts about specific issues affecting 'expatriates' living abroad. We discourage posts without any relevance to Andalucía and generally discourage posts about world events, member’s home country events and television programmes.

The Amigo's Lounge may be used for anecdotes and light-hearted banter as well as discussion about foreign TV programmes and high profile world events but these will be closely monitored and permitted on a thread by thread basis. As in all other matters the final decision on whether a particular thread is permitted will rest with the moderators. If such topics are posted in the main forum they will either be deleted or moved to the Amigo's Lounge. Political discussions will be permitted in respect of Spanish politics but posts appertaining to politics in other parts of the world will not be permitted.

An exception will be the single closely monitored thread that will be opened by a moderator allowing particular information that they may have been gleaned by members regarding negotiations concerning the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union but discussions regarding the pros and cons of such information will not be permitted and any attempt to start such a discussion will be resisted and irrelevant posts deleted. A quick search on the internet reveals that there are numerous fora available for such political discussion and we do not consider them appropriate on Andalucia.com Remember, it is the Amigo's Lounge not the Enemigo's Lounge and it is a concession which will be withdrawn if it is abused.The normal forum rules still apply in the Amigo's Lounge.

5-1 Reporting postsIf any member feels that a post is contrary to any of these house rules they are free to report it by clicking on the report icon – a small exclamation mark at the top right of the post. Moderators cannot be expected to read every post on the forum so this method will ensure that it is brought to their attention and action taken as appropriate.If you need to report a Private Message, as there is no report facility, you should send a copy of the offending message by PM to a moderator together with your reasons for reporting it

6-1 Off topic posting Whilst we do have a sense of humour and see no harm in a light hearted comment that strictly speaking is not relevant to the original posting, there is a tendency for this to divert an otherwise useful post. Not wanting to make future searching of the forum more difficult we may well consider this section of a thread to have become “off topic” and the posts may be deleted. Persistent posts of this type, especially if they are clearly designed to take the thread “off topic” may result in the account being removed.

7-1 Courtesy and Respect Members are encouraged to post and respond in a courteous and polite manner and to be respectful of other users at all times. Our preferred forum etiquette is for members to respond to posts with useful or relevant information that pertains to the subject of the thread. We discourage posts that are provocative, unnecessarily critical, attacking, bullying, ridiculing others. If posts fall into this category they may be removed or edited and the user will receive warnings. Persistent offenders will have their accounts removed.

7-2 Inflammatory threads or posts that are clearly designed to upset or antagonise other members will be removed and the poster will receive a warning. Further such postings may result in the account being removed.

7-3 Value Posts of one or two words and expressions that offer nothing of value to the thread may be deleted from time to time, especially if they are preceded by a long quote from another post.

8-1 Critical of Posts Members are discouraged from making critical posts that unnecessarily question the motives or the wisdom of other posts. This applies in particular to the posts and questions from ‘newbie’ members.

8-2 Material which does not comply to these terms and conditions may be edited or moved into another section or deleted. We do not keep records of deleted postings and cannot debate why a moderator deleted or edited a specific posting.

8-3 Discussion on the open forum of moderator actions is not allowed and any such posts will be deleted. If you have any issues with moderator action please email moderators (at) Andalucia.com.

8-4 If you post potentially libellous (in our opinion) material, we may ask you to provide full contact details and other information to support the assertions. This information together with email address and IP records will only be disclosed to third parties in accordance with a judicial process. Those who persist in posting messages that do not comply with these terms and conditions will have accounts deactivated or deleted and their IP address banned from posting. 9-1 Language and grammarPlease write in plain English and, where possible, use proper grammar and correct spelling and never use text speak or write in block capitals but do not be discouraged from posting if English is not your first language or was not your best subject at school.

Remember that splitting a long post into paragraphs makes it more readable.

10-1 Do not double or cross post.Duplicate posts or threads will be deleted. Do not try and “bump” threads by reposting when you have not had a response to your original post.

11-1 Quoting Posts Previous posts should only be quoted for the purpose of clarification or avoiding confusion. Posts immediately preceding the one currently being made should never be quoted in full. It is totally unnecessary and makes the forum very cumbersome. Such extraneous quotes will be deleted.

12-1 UsernamesRegistering a username or or using a user tag line that is an obvious domain name, company name or product name is not allowed. Such registrations will not be activated. Any active member with such usernames will have the accounts deactivated. . Email addresses are also not to be used as a username.

Creating multiple accounts is not allowed. If you have a legitimate reason to create a second account/username, maybe another household member joining, then you should contact the administrators. Anybody found with multiple accounts will have their posting privileges removed and all associated accounts /unsernames will be deactivated or deleted.

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We expect members to adhere to these house rules and guidelines for their own self-respect and do not wish to impose the draconian regime of 'infractions' and 'sanctions' which seem to be a feature of many other fora of this kind. The long standing forum members who are moderating this forum are "El Cid" and "Beachcomber", they may be contacted by email at: moderators (at) andalucia.com.